The opioid diaries: In Naples, a horse named Tacoma

Violet Acevedo with her equine therapy horse Tacoma at Naples Therapeutic Riding Center. Acevedo turned to equine therapy to help her overcome an opioid addiction that consumed her life for almost 10 years. The 33-year-old Naples woman has been opioid-free for going on five months.(Photo: Amanda Inscore/The News-Press USA TODAY NETWORK - FLORIDA)

Violet Acevedo’s story is one in an occasional series on our regional opioid epidemic.

The horse leaned in as though giving her a hug, the sleekness of its powerful neck broken by a rough patch of skin.

This is how my life used to be, thought Violet Acevedo, the first time she groomed Tacoma – perfect except for the rough patch of her opioid addiction.

Opioids hooked Acevedo after a job-related accident sidelined her from work.

At first she denied it: how could a successful business consultant with a family, a home and plenty of money, have a problem, the 33-year-old Naples woman thought.

Trainer Robin Heroth grooms Tacoma at Naples Therapeutic Riding Center, where she helps students learn to overcome physical and emotional obstacles. The bond between horse and human begins with grooming.(Photo: Patricia Borns/The News-Press)

“I realized that no two roads to recovery are alike. You have to try everything to learn what works for you,” Acevedo said.

So when the staff at Naples’ David Lawrence Center suggested equine therapy, she thought, why not?

A horse trainer named Linda Kohanov pioneered equine-facilitated psychotherapy in the 1990s; a way of building emotional and social skills through the bond of human and horse.

“Horses show empathy. They don’t judge or hide their feelings,” said Robin Heroth, a trainer at Naples Therapeutic Riding Center where Acevedo met Tacoma. “We put them with one horse in particular and ask them to bond with it.”

“I realized that no two roads to recovery are alike. You have to try everything to learn what works for you.”

Violet Acevedo

An American Paint with gentle eyes, Tacoma had been a family’s pleasure horse before starting her therapeutic career. Now, instead of carrying people, she interacts with them.

Not all horses are cut out for this work, Heroth said.

“Remember, horses are intuitive. They’re taking it all in and it’s mentally exhausting. They have to have a patient, kind personality,” she said.

Acevedo had been around horses on her grandmother’s Texas farm but never interacted with them. Growing up in a dysfunctional family, she was kicked to the curb at a young age, fending for herself on the streets.

Walking Tacoma for the first time, her heart raced.

“People told me she wasn’t easy to work with, but she was calm, and that calmed me,” she said.

Each equine therapy session starts with grooming to establish a physical bond with the horse. Then comes an assignment, usually involving an obstacle course.

“For instance, I ask them to set up an alleyway down the middle of the arena, putting obstacles in it relating to their recovery,” Heroth said. “Then we take off the lead rope, and they must convince the horse to go through the alley without touching him, using talk and body language only.”

Robin Heroth, a trainer at Naples Therapeutic Riding Center, demonstrates how students learn to hug a horse.(Photo: Patricia Borns/The News-Press)

As her bond with Tacoma grew, the therapy pushed her to trust others. In one exercise, she had to wear a blindfold and walk the obstacle course with her hand on the horse’s withers while someone else led the way.

“Try to think of the obstacles in your life,” the trainer told her.

Now Acevedo and Tacoma were the herd following a new leader. A David Lawrence therapist observing their communication could see, as she might not in a face-to-face session, how her client interacted with others, and, if there was an issue, work on it together.

“I still wake up every day and have to fight.”

Violet Acevedo

Three months before this, Acevedo had been released from Collier County Jail after serving time for drug possession. Up to then people had pushed her to go to self-help meetings and to drug court. Never one to accept help or even ask for it, she grudgingly went through the jail’s substance abuse program.

“It took a lot of different things for me to be ready to make a change,” she said. “You can’t tell an addict what to do. But I was tired. I knew the addiction was killing me, and I didn’t want to die.”

Acevedo checked into Crossroads last November, a David Lawrence recovery program, and had been there for almost five months when she met The News-Press.

“I still wake up every day and have to fight,” she said. “I never know if I can make it the entire day or if something will make me say, ‘Screw it, I don’t care anymore.’”